


here i am with arms unfolding

by whatkindofnameisella



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Crying, F/M, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, beaus there sleeping in the background too, cr 2 ep 79, cr2 ep 80, jester is sad and caleb is here to comfort her, light spoilers, please let them cry they all just need a good cry, set somewhere around ep 79/80
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 16:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella
Summary: She swallows, unsure of how exactly you address a friend you’ve found sitting on the floor of your adventuring party’s kitchen at two in the morning. “What’re you uh… doing down here?”“Making tea,” Caleb says, matter of factly, “Couldn’t sleep. You?”“The same, actually.” She looks at him looking at her for a second, both with bags under their eyes and a slouch to the way they hold themselves, before speaking again. “Do you mind if I join?”(in which Jester needs a good cry, and Caleb is there to comfort her. really, they're there to comfort each other. set during ep 80.)
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 21
Kudos: 188





	here i am with arms unfolding

**Author's Note:**

> I started this forever ago after ep 80 when everyone was so angry and sad and I just felt like a lot of them (but jester, ms I will keep all of my emotions right here and then one day ill die, in particular) could use a good talk and a cry, and thought about what could've happened while they were recuperating at the Xhorhouse. includes light spoilers for events up to then. title taken from the song "arms unfolding" by dodie clark.

Jester can’t sleep.

It’s been a stressful past few days, and the strain of everything is clawing at the back of her mind. Nobody in the group is especially happy with how things turned out, but they at least seem to be recuperating okay. Fjord has been surprisingly calm, taking to meditation and listening to the wind on the top of their turret in the down time; Caduceus has been offering hugs and conversations with that rumbly voice of his; Nott’s been spending her frustrations on engineering some new alchemical tricks, tucked away in the study and being willingly reckless _(close to Caleb’s door)_; Beau’s been clenching her jaw and exercising her way through an almost frightening fury, and Caleb…

Well, Caleb is being Caleb. On the edge of being present sometimes, at others seemingly not even here at all. 

This time there’s a simmering aura of anger settled over the way he sits in silence.

So far the darkness has been spent curling up into different and exceedingly twisted positions, Jester seizing up her own muscles until she feels like her veins will pop each time a new and paralyzing wave of anxiety hits her. That method is reaching the end of its effectiveness. 

Jester thinks it might be time for some tea.

She opens her eyes, really opens her eyes, already adapted to the darkness from hours of restlessness _(Nott would scold her if she found out she wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t taking care of herself, she thinks)_, and huffs out a breath of frustration and sits up in her bed. She stares at the door that opens out to the balcony _(Yasha’s balcony, it was supposed to be Yasha’s balcony)_, the rich wood now planes of grey in the dark, and then over with a furrowed brow at Beau, who’s currently conked out and snoring as loudly as ever on the bed next to her. And for a moment she just sits, just stares, waiting for some sort of motivation or peace to come over her. Jester watches Beau breathe in and breathe out and mumble and drool, hair spilling over her face in sleep. She’s probably exhausted after all of her exercise, Jester thinks, and she wonders when the last time sweat was absent from Beau’s skin. 

She thinks she hears the whisper of Yasha’s name in Beau’s mumbled breaths. The empty beginnings of a well-worn prayer for a storm.

Jester tosses the blankets off of her legs and swings her bare feet onto the floor. She ignores the chill the of the stone on her skin and instead focuses on walking past Beau and to the door – quickly, quietly, the handle turned so as to not make the latch click as she closes the door on the other side.

She turns around from closing the door, and she’s standing in the hallway, the home they’ve made their own layers of darkness and slight moonlight. Her eyes allow her to see a bit more than Caleb would _(Beau always has her goggles, always)_, but the hallway to her right still tapers off into darkness. She stares for a second, fixated on nothing and everything about where this hallway meets its end, and she can’t stop her hands from being slick with sweat or her chest from contracting a bit quicker because it’s dark and she can’t see beyond it and – 

_There is nothing but darkness as they crouch there, observing and waiting for something to happen, for some word to get back, and Jester’s heart is so loud in her chest it’s a wonder it’s not drawing the Laughing Hand to them on its own. And suddenly there’s a silhouette against the sky, leathery wings and horns, and it’s Oban, and he lands on a tree above them and he’s looking at the canopy that’s crashed through and all she can do is hold her breath because they are fucked, they are so fucked – _

Jester is brought back only when her fingernails are so far into her palm that she worries that they might have drawn blood. It’s hard to tell in the dark. She thinks of how last night Caduceus taught her to make the exhale longer than the inhale when she’s trying to calm down, trying to remember how to breathe, and she counts. 

_1, 2, 3, 4, 5,_ in. One last glare into the darkness. _1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,_ out. Looking away, taking her mind to the thought of lighting the fire in the kitchen and the warmth it will bring her. It moves her feet down the hallway, away from the darkness, and to the top of the stairwell. 

Jester puts one foot in front of the other, her feet tapping lightly against the stone of the stairs. She keeps her eyes trained to her feet and her hand running against one wall until she meets the ground, breathing in (one two three four five), and breathing out (one two three four five six seven). She tries not to think of the way her boots sucked into the mud while they were running, or how she could feel her magic shallow and leaving her, or the sound of the hounds as they emerged from the forest behind them because _shit they have dogs, we can’t keep up with this, if someone dies… if someone dies… shit if someone dies then they’re gone and it will be like Molly except really my fault this time and there’s nothing I can do about it– _

Jester catches herself before she slips on the last stair, and she winces as her hand strikes loudly when it catches the railing. She pauses, hands a bit shaky and chest a bit heaving _(all of her work to calm down gone to nothing, go figure)_, and she stands there on the last step wishing she weren’t such a coward. Maybe they would win that way.

She shakes off the thought, even if it doesn’t really go away.

She turns her focus to the thought of tea and quiet and maybe even some sleep, and the frustration of everything over the past two days takes her feet and marches them across the foyer, to the door of the kitchen, and her jaw is tight and her fist is clenched at her side as she swings it open and – 

Oh. Caleb’s there. 

Looking up from his position sitting on the ground in front of the cabinets, he looks just as surprised to see her as she feels to see him. Just like her, he’s barefoot, and all he’s wearing is his trousers and simple undershirt. His hair is disheveled and hanging in front of his face a bit, and his eyes, blue as ever, are looking up at her in a way that makes her heart pound. He’s clutching a pendant that hangs from his neck between his hands, his fingers fiddling with it.

There’s a kettle hanging over the fire on the other side of the room.

Jester suddenly feels very awkward standing in the doorway. “Oh, uh, hi Caleb.”

“Jester.” His voice is a bit raggedy and hearing it makes her stomach twist. “Hi.”

She swallows, unsure of how exactly you address a friend you’ve found sitting on the floor of your adventuring party’s kitchen at two in the morning. “What’re you uh… doing down here?”

“Making tea,” Caleb says, matter of factly, “Couldn’t sleep. You?”

“The same, actually.” She looks at him looking at her for a second, both with bags under their eyes and a slouch to the way they hold themselves, before speaking again. “Do you mind if I join?”

Caleb breathes in and clears his throat as if fully registering her for the first time, then nods. “No, ja, of course. Of course.” He stuffs the pendant down into his shirt and pushes himself off the ground, and she watches him walk as she shuts the door behind her, his form unobstructed by his coat or scarf. Jester looks at his arms with their lattice of white scars, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and his feet and ankles, and she thinks about how she’s never really seen them before but they’re quite nice, really, if a little hairy, and she thinks, _that’s a weird thing to focus on _and – 

Caleb’s looking at her, expectantly, holding out a chair for her, waiting for her to join him. 

“Sorry,” she squeaks, and Jester clears her throat and ignores the heat crawling up the sides of her face as she scurries over to sit in the pulled out chair. She folds one leg under her as she sits and Caleb takes the chair beside her, turning it to face her slightly, while she tries to nonchalantly cover up one of her burning cheeks with one of her hands.

“So,” she starts, cheek in one palm, looking at him now, and Caleb raises his eyebrows as he watches her from his leaned back position in his own chair, “What was keeping you up?” 

“Well,” Caleb inclines his head and takes a breath, and Jester watches his hand travel to his forearm and place its nails to skin before being flattened out and tugged down to his wrist, as if he’s telling it not to, “Uh, many things. The fight from the other day. The war. The past.” He pauses and Jester’s eyes settle on the chain of the pendant he was fiddling with before, just barely visible around his neck. He frowns and shrugs, his eyes meeting hers again, “You know. I do not have the best brain. Sometimes it gets the best of me.” 

Jester holds his gaze for a moment, feeling her own heart turn over those answers one by one, not yet sure whether they satisfy her curiosity. 

“Ja,” she concedes, “I know.” 

Her eyes travel back to the links of the pendant again, gaze following where she thinks it might sit on his chest, because it shouldn’t be that hard to find, he’s wearing such a simple shirt you know, and suddenly she’s staring at the dip of the seam of his shirt, where there’s just a little bit of Caleb-colored chest hair peeking through, and her stomach does a weird little flip and _gods get your mind out of the gutter, Lavorre _– 

“Mind if I ask what was keeping you up?” Caleb’s mind snaps her out of her trance. With the sickening tension that takes hold of her intestines she can’t decide if it’s brought her to a place that’s better or worse than the last. He’s dipping down ever so slightly as if to meet her gaze, looking at her almost expectantly. 

Jester pulls her hands into her lap, her fingers suddenly very very interesting, and she feels a familiar resistance shroud her response. “Oh, you know,” she says, how she hopes is as bright and breezy as ever, although she can’t tell because she can’t seem to pull her gaze back to him, “Things. Stuff.” There is a heavy pause in the air and she decides to let her eyes meet Caleb’s for just a moment, just because she can feel those baby blues like daggers piercing into her. She flicks her own gaze up to his and he’s looking at her like that, of course he’s looking at her like that, with a sweetness and a pain and a patience on his face, like he’s deciding whether or not to speak, and a quiet far off storm behind his eyes that’s brewing a hundred thousand thoughts she can only guess at. And it’s so longing and understanding and so damn patient, and she still can’t find the comfort to draw up an answer from within her.

“It’s just…” Jester’s gaze falls away from him. 

_Yasha, pained and contorted from her own self, a glow at the base of her neck, sparks flying off of her chin as she struggles, gods, she struggles against Oban, the tears rolling down her cheeks, unbidden, and Jester’s not sure if Yasha can even tell if – _

Stop. Stop. One deep breath. Two. A refusal to let the aching in her throat make its way to her eyes. A focus on the pattern of the grain of the table to keep herself here. 

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Jester holds back a wince at the way her voice comes out as if strained through cheesecloth, “Not a lot of victories. I haven’t seen a lot of things that I wanted to, you know?” She tries for a sad smile, a small laugh pressed out through her nose. 

She sees Caleb look down and fiddle with nothing in his lap out of the corner of her eye. “Ja,” and his voice is like those soot stained hands of his running through gravel, “I know.”

There’s a pause between the two of them, the silence not necessarily heavy, but simply a commiseration. An uncertainty of how to comfort each other. Jester can’t stop the thick snake of negative thoughts from wrapping down her spine, into her stomach and her heart and making every muscle want to clench and hold until the feeling goes away. Almost without thinking, she wraps her arms around her torso, staring into nothing as much as every tiny little detail of the wood just to have something to distract her, knots and swirls and a scorch mark from a too-hot pot set on the table one time, and – 

_Holding her breath as if that will stop someone else from stepping on a twig, feeling her power stretched so unbelievably thin, please don’t let them see us, if they do and something happens I can’t save anyone, Caduceus can’t save anyone, please don’t let them see us – _

“I… I am not very good at this, but…” Caleb’s rough, quiet and uncertain voice cuts across her thoughts again, and she jolts her head up to see him frowning into the pant seam of the leg he has folded up on the chair, elbows resting on his legs, palms upturned as if welcoming her. He lets out a sigh, looks up to her, brow furrowed and his face telling her that for once he is not calculating or predicting or playing a field, he is just seeing her, and thinking of her, and he says, “Would you… like a hug?”

Jester’s heart pauses in the best possible way, and she suddenly feels very seen and very heard, even if he has not really seen or heard everything within her, and she lets her arms slip away from her sides and a soft smile cross her features before she says, “Ja. That would actually… be really great.”

So she awkwardly takes the sides of her chair and scoots it along the floor until the wood of their chairs are touching, and Caleb raises his arms from his knees and there’s a pause in the air, an uncertainty. Jester can’t think of anything to do but lean forward, and as soon as she hits the rough spun cotton of his undershirt she feels herself melting into him, wrapping her own arms under his and around his ribcage, burying her face with a sudden intensity into where his shoulders meet his neck. He’s Caleb, so he freezes for a second, everything stiff and unsure, before he softens into her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, one hand settling at the base of her neck, fingers just faintly entwining into her hair. She feels his chest take one shuddering breath against her, the exhale making its way out against the side of her head. 

Maybe it is the stress of the past few days. Maybe it is the way that a part of her is breathing in the familiar smell of books and parchment and ink and campfires and feeling so very much at home, or the way she can faintly feel the tips of his fingers running circles through her hair. Maybe it is the way that Caleb is simply warm, and quiet, and not expecting anything of her, his arms a serendipitous comfort around her. There is a dam inside of Jester that has been shuddering at the brim for months now, and it breaks. 

Before she can think any better of it, there are tears running down her face, and then there are quiet sobs shaking her body – and while there is a part of her that wants to run away from this moment, that cannot stand the fact that she is letting him see her like this, letting anyone see her like this, there is another, much more overwhelming part of her that feels a comfort and release in his arms like she has rarely ever felt before. At least, a comfort with vulnerability that she has not felt around anyone in a very, very long time. 

Her sobs become loud, and ugly. There is snot running down her face and seeping into Caleb’s shirt _for sure_. But with every wrack of her ribs, with every strangled cry that forces up from the deep place of sorrow within Jester’s soul, the sound like fabric ripping in two, there is a release. And there are Caleb’s arms around her, soft and warm, welcoming her to cry out again. 

Jester is not quite sure when she first realizes it, but somewhere in between the horrors and disappointments of the past month and the elation of feeling cared for, there is a slight dampness on the fabric of her right shoulder. She takes a lull in the ache inside her to realize that Caleb is shaking with his own, ever so quiet tears, as if he doesn’t want to stir her. There is something so characteristically _Caleb_ about the stillness of it, the inconspicuousness of it, and it makes a tiny seed of warmth blossom inside her chest. It is in that moment that Jester realizes that she is holding onto him almost as much as he is holding onto her, and a whole new fracture opens up inside her upon the feeling of being there for him in her own despair. What an idea that she doesn’t have to put on a fucking smile to help a person she loves. 

They stay like that for a while. Until their shirts are a bit damp and the wells deep inside them have finally run dry. 

Jester is pressed up against him, breathing in that smell of books, and parchment, and ink, and campfires, and home, and she knows that she should pull away, it will definitely get awkward if she does not pull away, yet she cannot seem to just yet. Yes, the shirt she has her face pressed into is a little damp now, and yes, the leg she had folded onto her chair is starting to fall asleep a little bit, but there is also the feeling of Caleb’s arms around her shoulders, his rough fingertips twirling small circles through her hair, the deep, shuddering breaths she feels as his chest rises and falls as it is pressed against to her – she wants to linger in this moment just a bit longer. She wants to remember, when she wakes up tomorrow morning, the rare ease of lifting the curtain on her sorrow, and the way Caleb did not need to say anything to help her do it. 

And, of course, he is still very much holding onto her, and if she is the one to break the spell of intimacy Caleb seems to be under, then she will be kicking herself for the rest of her life. 

Jester does not move, but forces herself to speak, “I… I think I really needed this, Caleb.” Her voice is thick and coarse, and she finds that she does not mind if he hears her like that.  
There’s a soft huff of a laugh that puffs against her chest, and Jester’s pulse skitters at it, “Ja. I think I did, too.”

In the hollowness after crying there is a space for a strange happiness, and Jester feels a grin grace her lips, “I don’t even think I really need that tea anymore.” 

Just one more soft huff against her chest. 

They still don’t move. As the moment stretches on, Jester tries not to think about how close they are right now, or the soft brushes of air she is suddenly very aware of against her neck, or how one of his hands is just slightly on the skin left exposed by her dress on her upper back and she can feel the callouses of his fingers softly against her skin, or the way she could just pull away just a little and his face would be right there, his lips _right there_, and _okay just stop thinking about that it will only make it more awkward – _

The whistle on the kettle starts to blow.

They both freeze slightly, and the sound of the whistle is piercing Jester’s ears, and Caleb is still hesitant to shift from her.

“I should get that, shouldn’t I.” Jester thinks she can hear the blush in his voice.

“Ja,” her voice is just a slight bit too high, “You should.” 

The whistle is really loud now.

“Okay. I’m going to get the kettle now.”

“Okay.”

Then he’s unwrapping his arms from around her, and when he pulls back and looks straight at her with the faint remnant of tears rimming his eyes, all Jester can think is that he looks as handsome as ever, his hair glowing in the firelight and just a little bit of unchecked stubble growing back on his face, and his hands linger just a moment longer than perhaps they should on her arms, and _fuck_, how can he be pulled away but the feeling of warmth still so lingering in every little bit of her – and then he’s pushing off of the chair and walking over to the kettle with an oven mitt stuffed onto his hand and taking it off the fire and onto the metal countertop, his arms almost comically shaking with the weight of the water. He pulls two cups from a top cupboard, a plain one for himself and, after a moment’s consideration, the pink one she always uses. He methodically places a strainer over the top of the first cup, pours out the boiling tea, sets the kettle down, moves the strainer to the next cup, and pours out another. 

Caleb picks up one cup in either hand, unfazed by the heat, and as he turns around and his eyes lock onto hers, she suddenly realizes that she has been staring at him over the edge of her chair for the past minute. Jester watches as a blush blooms across his face as quickly as she is sure a blush blooms across hers, and he clears his throat and quickly looks down to the cups in his hands before speaking, “So… do you want to, ah…”

With a start and more ferocious bloom of warmth that worms its way up her neck, Jester also realizes that she has been sitting and doing nothing but stare at Caleb while he does everything for her, and she should be getting up to take her cup of tea now. 

“Oh! Uh, yeah, of course, uh – ” Jester stands up, wincing as her chair screeches as it’s pushed back along the floor, and she quickly shuffles over and takes the cup from Caleb, her fingers brushing against his for a moment and trying to ignore the way it sends goosebumps up her forearm and the way the heat of the tea seeps through the porcelain and burns against her palm. She looks down at the steam rising up to her face, and then to Caleb’s eyes, for once very clear and present and looking at her. She looks down again, ignoring a million little butterflies that ripple at the edge of her stomach.

Caleb clears his throat, forcing Jester to look at him as he swallows and fiddles his mouth as he figures out what to say next, “Well, I am actually feeling quite tired now so I uh… Think I’ll –”

“_Ja_, me too.” 

There is an awkward pause of looking into mugs, and feeling steam against her face, and wondering who will move first.

She dares to look up at him again before speaking, her voice quiet even to her own ears, “Sorry that I got your shirt all snotty and stuff.” There is still a grain to her voice, her throat a patchwork of failure, and melancholy, and a new lovely calm.

He presses his lips together in that strange smile of his, his brow drawn down to his eyes, the look not that far off from a grimace. There is a sweetness behind his eyes that takes her pulse off guard. “_Nein_, it is not a problem, Jester. I’m glad I was able to help you.” She thinks she sees the corners of his mouth deepen a little more into what could really be a smile. Just a little. “Even if my shirt has to suffer for it.” And gods above, if he looks at her with that pain and love and regret one more time she is going to die. 

She looks back to her tea. Smiles into the steam. There is a comfortable yet obvious silence. 

Caleb raises his voice, “Well, good night, Jester. I hope you get some better sleep.” 

Jester looks back up to him and lets the smile deepen just a bit, lets the warmth worm its way into her cheeks, “You too, Caleb. Good night.”

And at the smile she swears his breath stills just the slightest bit, and he nods stutteringly before turning to walk past her and towards the door. 

Hesitation roils quick in Jester’s gut and Caleb is halfway towards the door before she calls out, “Caleb – Caleb wait,” and then she’s walking towards him, quickly but not so carelessly as to spill the tea he just took the time to pour, before she can think better of the impulsivity that has just overtaken her, and her mind churns with the thought of, _gods, what am I doing, this is so stupid, oh gods, oh Traveler, shit shit shit – _

He turns around, a question on his face, and before the gods she just called on have the chance to intervene she places her unoccupied hand lightly on his chest and presses up onto her toes and a kiss to his cheek, lingering just long enough to breathe in that smell of books and parchment and ink and campfires and home, and the feel of his scruff beneath her lips, and be able to remember it tomorrow morning, and as she pulls back and her eyes settle on the way Caleb’s face is flushed red and his eyes are staring at her in disbelief, she relishes in every little feeling.

“Thank you, Caleb. For everything.”

His face is close to hers, and with a sudden bout of stomach-churning elation she realizes that she can feel the way his breath stutters as he opens and closes his mouth before figuring out how to reply. 

“_Ja_, of course. No problem.”

Jester steps back, lingers her hand just a moment longer than she maybe should, wondering if she had a moment longer she might feel that pendant he was holding just a bit ago beneath her fingers, before taking her hand from his chest. She casts one more look up to his flustered face, remembering the feel of the scruff on his jaw beneath her lips and feeling her heart skip a beat, before stepping past him and making her own way towards the door. She grabs the doorknob, pauses, and casts one last glance over her shoulder.

Caleb has turned to watch her go, eyes settling onto hers, face still wondrous and flustered and caught up in the very unpredictability of her.

Jester smiles again, finding it an effort to find the breath to make words come out.

“Good night, again, Caleb.”

She watches his chest shake with one more breath, thinks of how it felt against her not but a few minutes ago, before he replies, “Good night, Jester.”

Jester swings the door open and steps through before another stupid impulse can take control of her again. She thinks of Caleb, his wiry arms wrapped around her and the tips of his fingers circling through her hair.

She thinks she’ll sleep well through the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this for wayyy to long and I am so glad to finally be putting it out there. Maybe then I will FINALLY stop rereading this over and over again and looking for ways to improve it, hm? I feel like the past few episodes have been lacking in widojest, and then yesterdays ep (85) was not necessarily lacking but like holy shit did it get overpowered by beaujes (which is not bad but I have complicated feelings about? how did top table x jester get so far?). so. I hope this filled the widojest shaped hole in your heart for the time being. and I hoped you enjoyed! if you'd like to yell at me on tumblr im under the same name (whatkindofnameisella) there!


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